Big Sunday will welcome more than 2,500 volunteers for its 14th Annual BIG Thanksgiving Stuffing Event – a Festival of Gratitude – on Wednesday, November 26th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Radford Studio Center in Studio City. Entry will be located at Gate C on Colfax Avenue.
Held on the day before Thanksgiving, the event brings together volunteers of all ages and backgrounds from across Southern California to sort food, assemble bags, and help distribute more than 4,500 Thanksgiving food bags. In keeping with Big Sunday’s belief that “everyone has some way they can help,” many attendees will both volunteer and receive assistance, underscoring the organization’s mission of community, connection, and mutual support.
The Festival of Gratitude will take place throughout the Radford Studio Center, including its famed “Residential Street,” home to outdoor sets seen in classic television series such as Leave It to Beaver, Seinfeld, and Will & Grace. Hackman Capital Partners, owners and operators of the studio lot, have once again partnered with Big Sunday to host the event.
Each food bag serves a family of four and includes traditional Thanksgiving fixings such as yams, cornbread mix, cranberry sauce, gravy, stuffing, green beans, corn, and fresh-baked cookies. Thanks to donations from Food Forward and Albertsons, each bag also contains fresh produce and a gift card for a fresh turkey. The bags will be delivered to more than 125 schools and nonprofits supporting working families, seniors, veterans, domestic violence survivors, people experiencing homelessness, individuals with special needs, and others. While the food will feed an estimated 18,000 people, the event itself is expected to engage more than 22,000 individuals through volunteers, recipients, donors, partners, and supporters.
“This has been a terribly challenging year,” said David Levinson, Big Sunday’s founder and executive director. “It started with the awful fires and included everything from ICE raids to cutting SNAP benefits. People need some good news, and it feels like everyone is looking for an opportunity to spread compassion, kindness, and love.”
Schools, religious organizations, businesses, clubs, teams, and families throughout the region have already joined the effort by hosting food collections, purchasing items for the online food registry, sponsoring bags, making cards for recipients, and signing up to volunteer.
Since its founding in 1999, Big Sunday has connected people with volunteer opportunities across California and beyond. What began with 300 volunteers has grown into more than 1.75 million accumulated volunteer hours, hundreds of thousands of donated essentials, and over 2,000 helping opportunities produced or supported each year. Big Sunday’s mission is to connect people through helping, driven by the belief that everyone can make a difference. The organization was named by the Points of Light Foundation as one of “10 national nonprofits making a tremendous impact on our country’s most critical challenges.”
For more information go to BigSunday.org
